


Infiltrator

by EledoneCirrhosa



Category: 2000 AD (Comics), Strontium Dog
Genre: Body Horror, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-30
Updated: 2017-06-30
Packaged: 2018-11-21 12:53:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11357910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EledoneCirrhosa/pseuds/EledoneCirrhosa
Summary: The Kreelers have found a new way of detecting Mutant Army camps.





	Infiltrator

**Author's Note:**

> This story was originally printed in issue 10 of Dogbreath, the Strontium Dog fanzine. The early issues are available as free pdfs on the Quaequam Blog: http://thequaequamblog.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/dogbreath-volume-01-archive.html

It was a job well done.

Captain Hawken allowed himself a savagely satisfied smile when another of the freaks’ hovels collapsed as the second Kreeler transport roared by, taking a corner of the building with it. A hunchbacked figure scrambled frantically from the wreckage. A quick burst from Sergeant Howell sent the mutie reeling back into the pile of boards and plastic sheeting. Some of that latter looked as if it had come from a construction site. Thieving vermin.

The Kreeler swept his gaze over the rest of the ramshackle settlement. A couple of fires punctuated the darkness where mutie tents and shacks burned. He’d find out who set those later and give them a right bollocking for rendering everyone’s nightvision gear next to useless.

Still, all the targets had been dealt with, so a little high spirits were to be expected. He’d give the men another five minutes and then call them to heel.

Hawken picked his way through the debris to where the transport now rested, its engines idling. In the flickering firelight he could see a dozen or so muties attempting to flee by scrambling through the muddy stream that marked the western edge of the settlement. A trio of his men snagged the hindmost of them and the freak went down shrieking under a flurry of rifle butts. Perry got out that stupid antique knife of his and began to slash at her clothes.

A call to HQ confirmed that the data had been accurate and the objective had been achieved. Hawken acknowledged the order to bring back the firearms the rebels had been carrying, rolling his eyes heavenwards as he did so. What sort of pratt did HQ think he was? He wasn’t about to leave any weaponry lying about where more Mutant Army vermin could lay their deformed mitts on it.

“Right people, we are finished here.” Hawken’s bellow started most of the men ambling back to the waiting vehicles. A few stopped to jeer at Perry’s group and make suggestions as to what rad-land infections they might catch.

“Get your arses on the transport! We are leaving!”

“Some of them got away, Captain.” One of the younger men looked ready to protest the order to leave. The teenager scowled off into the darkness beyond the stream, where several of the freaks had vanished.

“Doesn’t matter, son,” he said. “Our new toy will track ‘em.”

Praise be to R&D.

          ~~~

 

Alpha leaned forward in the saddle studying the ground and the story that it told. Even in the half-light of a winter morning, the trail was unmistakable. The Kreeler vehicles had halted here to let the troopers dismount and advance on foot. They’d split into three squads: one going straight for the Trowbridge settlement, the others spreading out to flank it. So far, so good. But then when they hit the actual settlement, things didn’t follow the pattern he expected.

The youth put his heels to the pony and cantered over the hill to where Box and the rest of the Mutant Army patrol were picking through the ruins. He slowed the animal to a walk and followed the trail of the main squad in, as he had done twice before. No doubt about it: even with the tracks semi-obliterated by Claw-Foot’s people when they discovered and retrieved the dead, it was clear that the Kreelers had gone after specific buildings. A shack and a tent had been targeted first and all but annihilated. Only then had the norms spread out to destroy the rest of the settlement. Their strategy meant that quite a few of the mutants on the western side had been able to flee. Sloppy. Not the Kreeler’s usual terror tactics.

He frowned. Claw-Foot had already identified the bodies of his missing scouts. All four had been in that exact shack and that exact tent when the attack commenced. There was no doubt that the Kreelers had known they were there. What had given them away? Traitor, spy or carelessness - the prints offered no clues.

“Found anything?” he asked Box and Blue Gums as he dismounted. The pair were squatting by another set of tracks.

“Lot of animal tracks round the place where Claw-Foot’s lot were bedded down. Dogs mostly. Some ponies. And… this.” Box poked at the ground with a stick.

Alpha squinted at the clawed prints that Box indicated. It could almost belong to a dog. Almost. But the nails were too long, digging deep gouges into the mud. The shape of the pads was subtly wrong. The stride length was huge for such a small animal: the thing must have a spine like rubber to get such a distance between prints. Whatever it was, it was fast. The tracks glistened wetly, even though the mud around them was drying out. “Mutant?” Alpha ventured.

“Maybe,” said Box. “But I wouldn’t want it as a pet.” He dug the point of the stick into one of the tracks and held it up. Thin tendrils of blood and slime dripped from the tip.

“Damn thing had been chewing at the bodies,” Blue Gums put in.

Alpha grunted. Ordinarily he would have assumed that it was some deformed rad-land creature come to scavenge the bodies of the slain, but the tracks clearly pre-dated the attack: Kreeler boot prints overlay the clawed paw marks.

“It follow the refugees?” he asked.

Blue Gums shook her head. “No. If it left it either flew or hitched a lift on one of the Kreeler trucks.”

Another dead end. He sighed.

“I’ll push on, meet up with Beanpole and see what news we’ve got of Kev’s people.” Alpha swung back into the saddle and jerked his chin in the direction of a trio of men from the patrol he commanded. “I’ll take Sneaky Pete, Feathers and Leigh. You take the rest and catch up with the refugees. See if the survivors have remembered anything.”

Someone, somewhere must have seen or heard something suspicious or out of place.

 ~~~

 

“Please, have you seen my husband?”

Tessa plucked nervously at the sleeve of the old man in front of her with her right hand. Her left curved protectively around her belly. Baby stirred faintly within her, but this time there was no vigorous kick. He - or she - was quiet today.

The old man and his equally venerable companion paused to look at her. “Your husband?”

A small black and white dog trotted over to join them. It sniffed at Tessa’s foot and then growled at her experimentally. The old woman shushed it.

“Yes, we got separated when…” Tessa trailed off. She couldn’t exactly remember when. There had been noise and shouting and - she thought - a lot of gunfire. She could recall flashes of imagery: a child lying dead in the mud; a man with a twisted leg hobbling away as fast as he could; something that might have been human lying burning in the entrance to a shack. Davy had been off trying to find food when it happened. Or had it been blankets? He’d been worried about not having a blanket for when Baby arrived. The bruise on her head throbbed horribly as she tried to remember.

She did know that she had huddled under the wreckage of a fallen shack for a long time, too frightened to move. Then she thought she’d heard Davy’s voice and had crawled out to find him, but it had been her imagination. There was no-one alive out there, mutant or norm. She had wandered the wreckage of the little encampment for a while, calling his name. Turning over some of the dead in desperate hope they weren’t him.

When the sun rose she discovered the trails of muddy footprints that led away into the wilderness. Davy must have followed some of them, thinking she had fled. Tessa agonised over which trail to follow. The one with the large number of heavy boot prints must be the Kreelers. But there were two other groups and some isolated tracks - which of those belonged to Davy?  In the end she chose the trail that looked easiest to follow. She took a blanket from a three fingered man who had no need of it any more, wrapped it round herself, and set off.

Despite the heavy weight of Baby in her belly, she didn’t take long to catch up with the stragglers. Old people and injured made their progress as slow and laborious as her own. She staggered past the hindmost of them, stopping and asking each about Davy.

“What’s his name, dear? What does he look like?” the elderly mutant queried.

“Davy. He’s called Davy Maxwell. He’s twenty and blond and has fur all over his arms.” Soft, fine fur; so beautiful to stroke. She hoped that Baby would inherit that, rather than her ugly, awkward webbed hands.

The old couple shook their heads sorrowfully, regretfully. They hadn’t seen Davy.

Tessa turned to stagger onwards towards the next person in line, but slipped and fell heavily in the mud. The dog bounded forward, barking furiously at her. The eldsters rushed to help her sit up, to check she was unhurt. The woman alternated between scolding the dog and patting Tessa reassuringly on the shoulder.  

“You’re exhausted dear. You should rest.”

“No, I have to find Davy!”

“A few minutes won’t hurt,” said the woman.  Concern creased her lopsided face. “Look, the ones up ahead have stopped.” She pointed to where a distant knot of people were milling about by some trees. The dog took her pointing this out as cue to scurry off up the trail towards the distant figures. “Rest until they start to move again.”

Tessa reluctantly agreed. Baby kicked half-heartedly a couple of times. She moved to sit with the old couple on a patch of damp grass. Her head started to loll.

She jerked awake as a shadow fell over her, cutting off the feeble warmth of the winter sun. The group of people around her had swelled in size to a dozen, and she tried to get up and push past them, to see if those up the trail had moved on.

“It’s all right, dear.” The old woman patted her hand reassuringly. “Everyone’s back here. The Mutant Army have found us. They know a safe place to go. Maybe your Davy is there already, eh?”

“Mutant Army?” Tessa looked around and now saw the pair of MA scouts, with their mixture of civilian clothing and scavenged combat gear. Both carried thwup guns, and had large knives affixed to their belts. The old man was talking to one of them, pointing back at her and his wife. The dog raced round the little group, pausing now and then to bark shrilly.

Inside her, Baby gave a vigorous kick.

 ~~~

 

“General!”

Armz was going through lists of supplies with Tusk - damn but they were short of medical stocks - when he heard Alpha call for him. He turned to see the youth and Beanpole coming towards him at a brisk pace. The pair looked grim. More bad news.

“We’ll finish this up later, Tusk.” The Mutant Army leader clapped his companion on the shoulder in dismissal and walked to intercept his two lieutenants. He gestured to a nearby fireside.

Alpha dropped into a squat beside the flames. Beanpole hesitated, his agitation obviously wanting to make him pace, but at a glance from Armz the tall, lanky mutant gave a brief sigh and sat on the ground, overlong arms wrapped round equally overlong legs.

“What did you find out?”

Alpha’s stony expression morphed into a scowl. “It’s confirmed - three more Kreeler attacks in the last ten days. Claw-Foot’s lot lost a patrol near the Westbury ruins, as well as the scouts who were scoping out that refugee settlement to the north of the Trowbridge factory farms.” The scowl deepened, and Alpha’s voice was thick with anger. “And someone ratted out Kev’s people hiding out in the Warminster ghetto. They got chewed to pieces. No survivors.”

Armz frowned. “When?”

“Kev’s lot was ten days ago. Westbury five days after that, then Trowbridge yesterday.”

“Moving north,” mused Armz.

Alpha nodded. “Slowly, but yes, moving north.”

The Mutant Army leader’s frown deepened. Whatever had made their people suddenly vulnerable to Kreeler platoons appearing out of nowhere, it had started round Salisbury and initially headed east. Now a sudden shift to northwards movement. Pattern or just coincidence? And what the hell was it? The Mutant Army units were small and mobile, to avoid just this sort of thing happening. They raided and scattered back into the rad-lands, not strong enough to take on entrenched Kreeler bases or heavily fortified norm settlements. Virtually impossible to find… until now. Kreelman’s men must have come up with some new trick to get a spy into their midst. Or to track them…

“Think those rumours from north Wales are true? The Kreelers have got themselves a psi?” Alpha was obviously thinking along the same lines. Beanpole looked uneasy.

“Perhaps.” A telepath would be a useful tool in the ghettos, unearthing MA activists. The tales of a well-dressed norm who accompanied Kreeler patrols in Wales, sensing out the rebels, circulated now and again. Maybe the Welsh divisions had decided to share.

Kev’s people had been playing a dangerous game, hiding out under the Kreeler’s very noses. If there was a psionic operating in the ghetto they would have been easy meat. But equally likely in that situation was some hungry, desperate mutant sold them out for food or to avoid being hauled off to one of the labour camps.

“Did they just target Kev’s men?” he asked, glancing to Beanpole, who had been assigned to make contact with Kev’s group.

 “No,” the tall mutant said. “They went on a killing spree. It’s chaos down there. Lots of people have fled out into the rad-lands.”

Alpha nodded his head in grim agreement. “Same at Trowbridge, although…” The youth paused, his frown shifting from one of anger to puzzlement. “They could have slaughtered more than they did. It was like they decided not to finish the job.”

Now _that_ was not a typical Kreeler reaction. “They get called away elsewhere?” asked Armz.

A shrug. “Maybe.” Alpha’s tone expressed doubt. The youth made a gesture of frustration. “Sent Box and Blue Gums to help sort out the refugees,” he said. “Might find out some more from them.”

Helping the survivors was the best thing to do in normal circumstances, but might bring the Kreelers down on them if there was a telepath attuned to one of the fleeing civilians. Armz suppressed the urge to sigh. They could sit here all day second guessing themselves. Psi, spy, traitor, or just plain bad luck. He couldn’t let lack of information paralyse him. “Beanpole, send out scouts north and east. Get them to warn all the other units they can find that something might be coming their way.”

Beanpole rose to his full two metre height and jogged away.  Armz turned back to Alpha. “Grab a few men. Go hook up with Box again and see if you can get any clues from the survivors as to what happened.”

The boy gave a curt nod and moved to obey.

Armz stood to watch the youth leave. Alpha had talents that were almost akin to those of a psi. Talents that Armz had come to rely on. Would those same abilities make him less or more vulnerable to detection by a telepath?

 ~~~

 

The Mutant Army people had a vehicle. Tessa gave one of them a tired smile as the MA woman boosted her up into the back of the ancient and battered van. Inside the elderly couple helped her settle awkwardly to the floor. The space was already crowded with the injured, and Tessa felt a twinge of guilt. She wasn’t old or wounded, she was just pregnant. She had a few weeks to go before Baby would be ready to be born.

She peered out of the van, in a last vain hope that she would see Davy jogging over to join those that waited the van’s return. The MA soldier who stood ready to shut the rear doors gave her a reassuring smile of crooked teeth and blue-black gums. “Don’t worry about your husband, ma’am. We’ve got scouts out picking up all the survivors. If he's alive we’ll find him.”

Tessa nodded. Of course they would find Davy. That’s what the Mutant Army did - looked after people like her and Davy, protected them from the Kreelers. She clung to that hope tenaciously.

The MA soldier was just about to close the doors when the dog, not in evidence until that moment, made a leap and a scramble to get into the vehicle. There were cries of protest as it clambered over people to get to the old man. Its objective achieved, it jumped up and down on his legs, trying to lick his face. Tessa shifted marginally away from the hyperactive animal, worried that it would decide to turn its attention to her and perhaps hurt Baby. The MA woman rolled her eyes and slammed the rear door shut.

The journey was bumpy and uncomfortable, but thankfully short. Baby was still giving the occasional kick, and Tessa tried to concentrate on this, or on the conversation the eldsters kept up. The man was called Jack and his wife Marie. Their irritating dog was Bobby. They used to live in the Warminster shantytown, but had moved out into the rad-lands when the Kreelers started rounding people up to go to the factories.

They asked if she had ever been to Warminster and Tessa said yes, that’s where she and Davy had lived for a while. She remembered the place vividly, but couldn’t recall how long ago she had been there. They seemed to have been on the move forever. First trying to find Davy’s brother, then later just fleeing from the places which were no longer safe from the Kreelers.

She was telling them this in a rather disjointed fashion, when the truck finally halted and the rear doors were thrown open. Bobby the dog ran straight over Tessa, scratching her arm painfully with his claws and leaving muddy marks around the cuts. He shot out the open door and she could hear his incessant yapping from outside, intermingled with human voices.

“Oh my. Bobby, dear, don’t be a bad boy!” The old man tottered out of the lorry with the more able bodied of the occupants, scolding at his dog.

Tessa helped his wife to her feet and the pair were assisted to descend by the woman with the strange coloured gums. Outside was a collection of tents, trucks and camouflage netting. Mutants with rifles slung over shoulders or pistols on their hip moved purposefully around the camp. Makeshift stretchers waited for the newcomers that were unable to walk. A blond man in grimy combat fatigues paused briefly by each of the wounded, looking over their injuries.

“There now,” said Marie. “We’re in a Mutant Army camp. We’ll be safe here, you’ll see.”

“Yes,” said Tessa. A safe place to wait for Davy. She sat down heavily, suddenly overwhelmed by exhaustion. The tiredness came in warm waves, making her vision swim. Baby’s kicking inside her became distant, like it was happening to someone else. A contraction rippled across her abdomen.

As she collapsed, she was aware of Bobby’s insistent barking and an irritated shout: “Will someone get rid of that damned dog?”

 ~~~

 

Baby was coming. Baby was coming. He was about to be born and Davy wasn’t here.

Tessa opened her eyes in panic. She was inside a tent, its plastic walls rippling slightly in the wind. She whimpered as a sudden pain blazed inside her, and shook off the hands that were trying to help her sit up. Old Marie patted at her shoulder.

“There, there, dear don’t worry. Your baby is coming, that’s all. Now we just need to get some of those clothes off, make you comfortable…”

“No!” This was all wrong. Davy should be here. If he wasn’t… Tessa grabbed at the old woman’s hands as she started to unfasten her clothing. “You have to go! You have to go now!”

“Don’t worry. The medic will be here as soon as he’s finished with the wounded, but don’t you fret - I’ve delivered a few babies in my time, and no mistake.”

“No, Davy has to be here! You have to find Davy. If Davy is here it won’t… happen… again…”

Baby convulsed savagely, eager to be out in the world. Tessa tried to scream but found her voice gone. She could feel a cold paralysis slowly creeping through her. Baby was coming.

“What won’t happen?” Marie asked absently as she pulled Tessa’s coat off and pillowed it behind her. “Now let’s just get your skirt… Oh, but that’s a lot of blood!”

Baby clawed his way to freedom, kicking free of her. He shook himself, blood and slime splattering the old woman as she stared in disbelief at his sleek four-footed form.

Unable to move, to react to pain or the sight of Baby baring his teeth in a snarl, Tessa could only watch as he lunged and bit, injecting Marie with the same venom that paralysed her. Baby sniffed at the old woman as she toppled on one side. He padded back to his mother and licked affectionately at the tears that rolled down her face, then trotted out of the tent to do his work.

 

          *              *              *

 “Sir, we’ve got another signal!”

“Where?” Hawken went from a semi-doze to instant alertness as his comms man excitedly delivered the news.

“Fourteen klicks north-east of the last one.” The comms man transferred the data to the graphic display of the area they were assigned to patrol. A red dot glowed into life on the map.

“Details?”

“Fifty two mutants present, with thirty four of them identified as armed. 99.83% probability it’s a Mutant Army encampment. No signs of imminent dispersal or movement. Lieutenant Farmer’s platoon are within range. Shall I send them the grid ref?”

A blue cross marked the current location of Farmer’s command.

Hawken considered. Thirty four rebels, eh? Farmer’s lads could no doubt take them, especially with the element of surprise, but a little extra firepower wouldn’t go amiss.

“Yes, but tell him to hold off for now. Our platoon will assemble here-“ His finger tapped the display and a second blue cross was added to the screen. “-and we’ll hit them from two sides at once.”

“Yes, sir.”

Hawken smiled. It was going to be another interesting day.

 ~~~

 

“Wait.” Alpha threw a hand up to halt the others, and reined in his pony. He cocked his head to one side, straining to catch a repetition of the sound he’d heard.

“What?” asked Sneaky Pete.

“Engine. Something big.”

The wind shifted briefly and it came again - the noise of a not too distant vehicle. Too big and heavy to be anything that the Mutant Army possessed, it had the timbre and tone of a Kreeler armoured transport. Somewhere to the north of them, over the crest of the hill.

“Sneck!” Pete’s eyes widened with alarm.

“Spread out,” said Alpha. “We need to pin point that transport fast.” The brief snatch of sound had been enough to confirm that the vehicle was between them and the site where Box had taken the refugees. The youth felt anger wash over him: it seemed the Kreelers were indeed tracking the survivors.

They dismounted and scattered along the slope before beginning their climb. It was a muddy scramble up the slope, sliding on leaf mulch and slick ground. Alpha hit the dirt and crawled forward the last few metres to carefully peer into the next valley.

Nothing in sight, but the ground on the flank of the slope some hundred metres or so away from him was churned up by fresh vehicle tracks. He edged over to the left, where the bare winter trees would cover his crossing the skyline. A hand signal to Feathers, and then Alpha crested the hill, sprinted ten metres or so and dropped into cover in the lea of a wind-thrown elm. Leigh and Sneaky Pete followed a moment later, finding their own cover. The other three advanced after a pause to see that all was safe; Feathers bringing up the rear.

They pushed slowly along the valley, parallel to the tracks, keeping within the cover of the trees. The engine noise which had alerted them was silent now. Alpha felt the grim tension of an anticipated gun battle start to heighten his senses. To his right Pete licked his lips nervously and then flashed him a feral grin.

He edged forward to where the tree cover gave out. Kreelers. The youth’s eyes narrowed in bitter hatred as he saw his father’s men climbing down from the two transports parked in the narrow valley beyond. They looked to be preparing to advance on Box’s position.

Keeping one hand on his thwup gun, he reached inside his shirt for the well-maintained, but rarely used, hand-comm which most patrol leaders carried. “Box, Alpha. Kreelers coming from the southwest.”

Then the young mutant took careful aim.

 ~~~

 

“Sir! Possible mutant transmission.”

Hawken’s feeling of anticipation as the men dismounted for the final approach and assault was interrupted by his radio-man’s call.

“Where? The camp?” The Kreeler Captain wheeled to face the comms man, who had palmtop display open and already had fingers dancing over the screen in expectation of his commander’s question. Mutie radio transmissions were rarer than hen’s teeth. A spooker plane or a couple of artillery shells launched at any triangulated position soon dissuaded the freaks from using much in the way of comm chatter.

“No, sir. I’m trying to pin it down. Just tying in Lieutenant Farmer’s data on the signal now.” A red dot blinked ominously on the display.

“Sneck sake, that’s right on top of us!” He turned again to bark orders. “Sergeant, we’ve got muties on our left flank. Get a squad up there fast!“

The harsh cough of a thwup gun cut the sergeant’s acknowledgement of the order into a choking scream. Hawken cursed and returned fire.

 ~~~

 

People were running and yelling. Baby bounded to and fro amongst them, excited and confused. He hadn’t done the final part of his task yet. He was supposed to mark the dwellings where the gun owners lived, and bite a few of them if he could. However, most of the people he had identified as armed were no longer in their dwellings, instead heading out to the edges of the settlement. Usually the shouting didn’t happen until the final portion of his task had been completed. Usually the gunfire was a lot closer. Usually the gunfire was all centred in one place. Usually there was blood and death and food.

He stopped and darted under a truck whilst he thought about this. He was hungry. If he didn’t feed he couldn’t look after Mother. He linked to the satellite and sent out an experimental second transmission, just in case his first one had been misunderstood. _They are HERE!_

Baby waited another ten minutes, but the gunfire grew no closer. He puzzled over whether to head towards the nearest firefight in search of food, or to stay close to Mother, as he was supposed to do.

A shrill noise interrupted his concentration. Baby looked up and hissed at the furry black and white creature which yapped and growled at him. It lunged at him and he retaliated with slashing fangs and extended claws. The annoying black and white thing convulsed a few times as the venom took hold, then subsided into stillness.

Baby sniffed at it. It appeared to be dead, which worried him. His venom wasn’t supposed to do that. What if Mother died one time?

Someone clattered into the truck overhead and started the engine. If people were about to leave, he should go back to Mother. Baby eyed the motionless black and white thing again. Maybe he could eat this? He wrestled with it until he got a secure grip with his jaws, then trotted back to Mother, head angled high to avoid trailing his prize on the muddy ground.

 ~~~

 

Alpha fired another shot and a Kreeler who had dared to poke his head from cover was knocked backwards by the impact of the blast. In retaliation the mini-gun in the nearest transport scorched the trees around him into charcoal.

“Pull back!” he yelled.

Eight of the Kreelers were already down, although the return fire had cost them Leigh. But now the gunners in the transports had woken up, and with none of the mutants close enough to make use of a Stikkiboom or a grenade, it was time to be elsewhere.

Pete let off a flurry of shots, then was up and twisting off into the thicker cover up the hill, with Bearpaw on his tail. Feathers and Hairy Mary gave covering fire, then followed suit. Alpha risked another shot, then did his own twisting run through the trees, wincing as Kreeler fire rained shattered pieces of wood on him. He threw himself over the brow of the slope and rolled to fire a few more bursts back through the woods, to discourage the Kreelers from following them.

“Ponies?” he asked, but Bearpaw and Hairy Mary were already hammering down the dale to where the beasts had been left. “Pete, you got time to set up a tripwire?”

A smirk. “Sure. Always got time to surprise Mr Kreelman’s boys.”  Pete shouldered his thwup gun and was already digging in pockets for grenades and wire.

Alpha and Feathers lay and watched for pursuit. The trees here were dense enough to prevent the norms sending their transports directly after them. They’d either have to pursue on foot, or mount up and swing round to try and flank the mutants… or give it up as a bad loss.

“Here they come.” Alpha squeezed off a shot at movement in the trees. Apparently they hadn’t bloodied the Kreelers’ noses enough for them to forego a chase. He glanced at Sneaky Pete. “Done?”

“I’m done. Not my usual elegant style, but it’ll do.” Pete arranged a few more dead leaves on a concealed grenade and squirmed backwards down the slope. He cocked an ear. “Sneck! You hear that?”

One of the transports was on the move. “Go,” said Alpha. He and Feathers fired a few more rounds into the trees and then followed Pete in his sprint down the hill.

Mary and Bearpaw met them partway with the ponies. Alpha threw himself into the saddle and kicked the beast into a gallop.

On the crest of the hill behind them there was a scream as the first of Pete’s boobytraps took effect.

 ~~~

 

Hawken opened his eyes. He sat up and shoved away the medic that was trying to do something to his face. A feeling of cold numbness afflicted once side of his head. A glance around showed no sign of Perry or his men.

“Where the sneck is second squad?” The words came out alarmingly slurred.

“Sir, you’re injured.” The medic from first squad tried again to press something to his face.

“I said where are second squad?” Hawken glared at the man.

“They’ve gone in pursuit of the muties, sir.” His comms man crouched down beside him.

Perry would, cretin that he was. “Well, tell the stupid bastards to get back here. We need to back Farmer up, not chase off into the middle of nowhere.”

It was too much to hope that Farmer would have managed to pin down the main mutie force as planned and for Hawken to slam into their rear. Not with mutant transmissions and firefights echoing across the winter landscape to warn the freaks of where they were. Doubtless most of the camp had packed up and scattered into the rad-lands by now. Like the vermin they were.

But the freaks would re-group, and when they did, R&D’s little pet would alert him.

“Get me Lieutenant Farmer.”

As the comms man started calling Farmer’s call sign, Hawken submitted to the dressing the medic pressed to the side of his face.

 ~~~ 

 

Baby curled up by Mother, squeaking happily to her as he fed. He ate the black and white thing’s eyes first, and then gnawed ineffectually on its skull for a while, trying to break through the bone to get to the nutritious brain that he knew was within. Brains were best, but his teeth weren’t really designed to crack bone. Usually he found some food with its head already opened for him. But he had already established that tonight was not usual.

He instead attached the haunches and belly of the furry thing, nipping at delicious chunks of fat and liver. When he was almost so stuffed that he could hold no more, he abandoned it and began to clean Mother, licking the blood off her and rubbing affectionately against her now and then. Mother didn’t like to be dirty - it upset her.

The leftovers of the furry thing were very dirty, even though he’d tried his best not to drag them in the mud, or spread them about the tent too much. Baby pondered this, then pulled up a corner of the plastic sheeting which covered the floor. He could hide them. He set to digging a hole.

Baby told Mother a happy story as he worked. Her eyes closed and she smiled.

He looked at the old woman who still lay by Mother. She wasn’t smiling, so she probably didn’t understand the story. Or maybe she had forgotten it already. Forgetting was good.

Baby licked himself fastidiously clean and wriggled back inside Mother, to reattach himself to her. He curled up into a comfortable position and told her body to heal itself, then settled down to sleep. If any of the words Mother heard or things Mother saw were important, she would wake him.

 ~~~

 

“C’mon! We’re pulling out!”

Tessa sat up groggily as the woman with the blue gums stuck her head inside the tent. “Wha…?” She’d been dreaming about Davy. Marie was lying on the floor, rubbing at her eyes.

The Mutant Army woman paused to stare a moment at Tessa and Marie. “There’s two firefights, one less than half a klick away and you’ve been _sleeping_? You people must have been more exhausted than I thought.”

“The baby!” Marie roused suddenly and looked wildly about. “Where’s the baby gone?”

“My baby?” Tessa ran her hands over her rounded belly. Hadn’t Marie been saying something about contractions? That Baby was on his or her way? It must have been a false alarm. Tessa was glad - she wouldn’t want Baby to be born until Davy was here.

Marie stared at her. “I thought… I thought that it had been born… I’m sure I saw…” She trailed to a halt.

“Come on!” The Mutant Army woman had lost patience and grabbed Tessa’s arm to pull her out of the tent. “Get on the truck. That one over there.”

As the woman urged them towards the vehicle, Marie’s husband trotted up. “Marie, have you got Bobby? I can’t find him anywhere.”

 ~~~

 

“The scouts spotted the northern group about five minutes after we got your call about the southwest ones.” Box paused to gulp water from a canteen. “So I sicced most of the people who had just grabbed weapons onto the nearer threat and left Blue Gums to watch the southwest in case they got by you.”

Alpha nodded. His small group had caught up with Box and a few others at one of the recognised Mutant Army rendezvous points. Box had ordered the rest of his people to scatter, taking the refugees with them.

“No sign of what set them on to you?”

A shake of the head. “No. We collected eighteen refugees, six of them wounded, and another two of them little kids.” He shrugged. “No one did anything suspicious, none were bugged - I had Swan run a surreptitious scan to check that out first off. Sneck it, if any of them were a telepath, I’ve no way of telling. The damn dog could be a telepath for all I know…”

“Dog?”

“Yeah, one of the eldsters had a dog. Annoying yappy thing.”

Alpha frowned. “Swan scan it?”

“Yeah - dog, owners, the lot.” Box gave a frustrated sigh. “We’re going to have to start searching people, aren’t we? See if some bastard is carrying a transmitter. It’s going to cause chaos.”

Alpha gave a grunt of agreement. They were supposed to be helping their people. Feeding the ghettos, freeing the forced labour, giving shelter to refugees. If they ended up afraid to interact with their own kind for paranoia that one might have a concealed transmitter, then the Mutant Army was failing in its purpose. If they reacted to every newcomer with suspicion and hostility, then they’d soon be no better than Kreelman’s men.

They needed a plan. Something - anything - which would get them more information.

“Okay, we know that the Kreelers had tagged your group but not mine. Then your people scattered.”

A nod from Box.

“So we assume that this tracer, traitor, whatever, is still linked to one of your people.”

“How do we work out who?”

“We use me and my people as runners.” Alpha jerked his head to where Sneaky Pete and the others rested. “They go out and contact the smaller groups. Tell ‘em to stay put. Tell _us_ exactly who is where. Names and descriptions of refugees included.” He shifted his gaze back to Box. “Then we start to bring the groups together.”

“See who gets hit,” said Box grimly.

“Yeah,” said Alpha. “But we keep a few of our people back. Ones the groups know nothing about.”

“And hope to Grud that they are enough to stop the Kreelers,” finished Box.

 ~~~

 

Blue Gums’ current camp seemed as devoid of clues as to the traitor as all the rest were. The last day and a half had been uneventful, which was both reassuring and frustrating at the same time.

Alpha wolfed down mouthfuls of soup as he listened to her report of the abortive Kreeler attack and the journey here. Blue Gums had the biggest group numerically, but mainly because she had ended up with most of the refugees and several of the MA fighters injured in Box’s defence of the earlier camp. Alpha was ready to pull in another half dozen men to boost the camp’s fighting strength and maybe shake loose whatever the hell it was.

“That thing that left the footprints was there.” Blue Gums gave a helpless shrug. “Think that’s relevant?”

“The prints from Claw-Foot’s camp?”

Blue Gums nodded. “Yeah. Merrill and Cat both saw it.” She raised her head to call out to one of the nearby mutants. “Hey Garth, go get Merrill.”

“He’s asleep,” the man responded.

“Well, wake him. Important, okay.”

The man retreated, grumbling to himself.

Alpha raised an eyebrow at the exchange.

Blue Gums shrugged. “Garth has become Merrill’s champion. Defends him when the others get twitchy about Merrill being a norm. Insists he sleep when he half works himself to death in overcompensation.”

“Merrill’s not the traitor.” The Mutant Army didn’t have many normals fighting alongside them, but Merrill was one of the few. “I’ve been inside his mind. He and his wife are genuine.” The couple had lost a mutant child to Kreelman’s policies. They had no love for the Kreelers or their aims.

A bleary eyed and haggard Merrill approached, Garth a few paces behind.  The norm hunkered down beside them, running fingers through his grimy blond hair. “We got more wounded coming in?” the tone was one of resignation.

Alpha shook his head. Merrill was an army medic by training, but his skills were constantly being tested to the limit by lack of supplies and the nomadic existence of the Mutant Army. “No. Just need to ask some questions. Then you can sleep again.”

“S’okay. That woman’s baby is due anytime now. Ought to check on her anyway.” The man’s relief that there were no new casualties to treat was evident.

“Blue Gums says you saw some sort of animal just before the attack?”

Merrill shook his head. “Not before. Just after we got word from the scouts. It was running about as people were heading up to give the scouts back-up.” He paused a moment. “Looked like - I dunno - some sort of bald dog. Sleek, almost metallic. Didn’t get much of a look at it.”

“What was it doing?”

“Bounding about chasing its own tail, like an excitable puppy. Nothing threatening, but…” A shrug. “Ugly snecker.”

“Can you show me?” Alpha motioned to his eyes.

Merrill grimaced. “It’s that important?” At a nod from his young leader, the norm sighed. “Yeah, okay. Just get it over with.”

“Relax. It won’t hurt.” Alpha moved to sit by the medic, hold his head lightly in his hands. Silver-white eyes stared into brown. Garth looked away, uneasily.

Merrill gave a snort of disbelief. “You’re not the one that gets the hangover.”

The young mutant stepped up the intensity of his gaze, let his sight touch the surface of Merrill’s mind. Pushed aside the surface thoughts of fatigue and anxiety about the wounded. _The creature?_ he prompted. Merrill’s memories tumbled forth: brief glimpses of a sleek, running form zig-zagging about the camp, getting underfoot as the medic tried to get the injured refugees ready to flee. The creature was small and fast; barely the size of a cat. But it had a more elongated weasel-like shape with long limbs and skin that looked hard and shiny - almost, as Merrill had described - metallic.

He ran through the memories again, hoping that some of the images and emotions would provide some clue as to what the creature was and whether there was any link to the attacks. Probed deeper, seeking out any subconscious clue that Merrill had picked up. Nothing. As far as he was concerned the creature was just some rad-land animal.

The man was starting to tremble from the intensity of the search. Alpha broke contact and sat back on his heels. “You okay?”

A mute nod. Merrill looked pale and shaky.

“Find out anything?” Blue Gums asked.

“Some kind of mutated animal. No clue where it came from or how it got from Claw-Foot’s camp to yours. Assuming it’s the same one.”

“In other words, nothing we didn’t know already.”

 ~~~

 

Tessa shivered in the cold wind and wrapped her hands tighter round the mug of soup she had been given. There were people milling around the encampment as food was handed out; some newcomers, some those that she had been travelling with since the camp where she’d had her false labour. As if in sympathy at the memory, Baby stirred inside her.

She sipped at the soup slowly, wishing that Davy was here to share it with her. When was the last time that Davy had shared a meal with her? Trowbridge? Warminster? It seemed so long ago, and yet… And yet she could remember clear as day cuddling up in Davy’s arms and the pair of them sharing some chocolates that he had traded for. That had been in the tent in the last camp, hadn’t it?

But no, that wasn’t possible - she’d been with Marie and Jack when she arrived there. Not with Davy. Tessa’s head ached fiercely as she tried to sort her memories back into a coherent order.

As if her thoughts had conjured them, Jack and Marie approached and sat down beside her. Marie had been very quiet over the last day or so, bothered by some bad dream she had had and by the loss of their dog, which had disappeared when they had to flee the last camp. Tessa had muttered something sympathetic about the vanished dog, although she was secretly pleased the yapping pest had gone.

“There’ll be more people here soon,” said Jack. “Some young Mutant Army fellow is here. Says that all the scattered groups will be getting back together before we move on. Very young, but I suppose he knows what he’s talking about… The older troops all pay attention to what he says.” The eldster paused a moment. “Maybe your Davy will be with one of the groups, eh? And our Bobby. Now wouldn’t that be nice?”

Tessa gave a wan smile at his hopeful tone. Inside her, Baby gave a kick.

 ~~~

 

“Hey, Alpha!” Merrill still looked shattered, but some hot food inside him had restored his colour. Garth hovered nearby. “I need those eyes of yours before you leave.”

“Problem?” The youth paused where he was saddling his pony. He needed to get back and co-ordinate the next rendezvous point.

“Got a pregnant woman. She’s not very coherent, but I think she’s way overdue from what she remembers. I need you to check her out and see what I’m going to have to deal with.”

“You want me to mind-link with you again?” Merrill had used Alpha’s vision in the past to get medical information on patients, but the youth knew how much the man hated the experience.

“Yeah, well, I’ve already _got_ one headache thanks to you. How much worse can it get?” The man grimaced. “And you know how fucked up mutant births can get. If there is going to be a problem, I want to know.”

Problem could mean anything from a non-standard body shape in the infant, to an abnormal birth canal in the mother. Anything could turn birth from potentially hazardous to fatal. Especially out here, with no hospitals or robo-docs to assist.

“You’ve no mediscan?”

“Oh, I have one. And just as soon as one of your raiders kills a Kreeler with the right spare parts in his back pocket, I’ll have it working again.” Merrill rubbed at tired eyes. “C’mon, it’ll only take five minutes.”

“Then you’ll sleep,” put in Garth.

“Then I’ll sleep,” agreed the medic.

 ~~~

 

“Hey Tessa.” The MA medic approached, with a couple of other armed mutants in tow. The man nodded a brief greeting to the eldsters and then squatted by Tessa. “Alpha here is going to help me assess how far along you are, okay?”

Tessa looked up at the white-eyed youth Merrill had gestured at. He was young, but he carried himself like a soldier, the way Davy’s brother had before… Before what? The memory of what had happened to Davy’s brother skittered away from her. She pulled herself back to the present.

“You’re a medic too?”

“No, ma’am.” The youth touched the strap of the rifle slung over one shoulder. “Soldier. But my mutation can help Merrill.”

Tessa wasn’t quite sure how strange eyes could make one useful to a medic, but she let Merrill help her to get up and walk to the privacy of a temporary shelter erected between two trucks. The white-eyed youth pulled aside the camouflage netting and plastic sheeting to let her enter.

“Do I need to get undressed?” Tessa asked.

“No,” said Merrill. “Alpha can see inside you and find out how your baby is positioned. Then he can show me what he sees. It’s just like a regular mediscan.” He gave a reassuring smile, but Tessa could detect an underlying tension and was aware Merrill regarded this Alpha as his superior, not an assistant.

“It won’t hurt Baby?” she asked uncertainly. This teenager could see through things? How did that work? She could feel Baby quiver within her, as if he was stirring in his sleep. Her hands curled protectively round her taut belly.

“No, ma’am, it won’t hurt your baby,” Alpha said.

Tessa pondered a moment. “You can tell me if it is a boy or girl? If Baby is going to be furry like Davy?” she asked hopefully.

“Davy?” queried Alpha.

“My husband.”

The youth glanced at Merrill and then nodded. “Yes, ma’am. I will.”

Tessa smiled. “Good.” She so hoped that Baby looked like his father. She tilted her head on one side curiously as the young mutant’s eyes began to glow. Baby gave another quiver.

 ~~~

 

Seeing inside the woman’s womb should be a trivial task - a matter of only a few moments. Transferring the images to Merrill’s mind would be the trickier part. Alpha was distracted by that consideration when he altered his vision to the level needed to penetrate flesh, and paused a second before he realised what he was seeing.

The woman was as expected now a ghostly apparition of semi-transparent flesh, with the denser opacity of bone within. But her baby - if such it was - held metal and plastic within it. Internal organs undeniably artificial in form. Circuitry of unknown function winding traceries through muscle and bone; extending in a halo around its face.

“Can you see my baby?” The woman’s voice sounded whispery and distant. “Is it a boy?”

The thing curled up inside her gave a convulsive movement, wrenching its muzzle free of the halo of circuitry and twisting to orient head down. Alpha backed off a pace, letting his rifle drop from shoulder to ready position. Shoot it now, or wait until it emerged? Was the mutant woman a willing part of this?

As he hesitated, the woman started to topple, and the shadow form that was Merrill jumped to support her. “Alpha what the sneck is going on?”

The creature began to claw its way free.

Alpha dropped his vision back to normal.

“Baby… Baby is coming…”  The woman was barely audible. “Davy…”

It landed on the ground, blood slick and hissing.

“Holy sneck!” Merrill had fallen backwards, cradling the now inert woman. “But that’s-“

Alpha shot it.

The impact cut the thing in two, blowing its back legs and tail clean off. The front portion of the creature tried to lunge at him, claws extended and teeth bared. A second shot mashed it into the ground. It shuddered and exposed circuitry briefly rippled with sparks, then the body went slack.

Garth burst into the shelter, gun at the ready. “What the fuck’s going-?”

Alpha grabbed him by the shoulder. “Get the civilians moving. There’s going to be an attack. Move!”

He didn’t know how much that thing would have been able to transmit or what time they had. Time they needed to get the non-combatants as far away from here as possible.

He swung back to Merrill, who was still staring in disbelief at the remains of the ‘baby’. “She going to live?”

“I…” The medic wrenched his attention back to the woman he cradled. “I, uh, don’t know. I’ll try…”

“Keep her alive. She’s our only source of information at the moment.”

 ~~~

 

“Captain Hawken, sir - a signal. The tracker unit is broadcasting in emergency mode.” The comms operator scowled at his instruments. “Shit, lost it. Sir.”

“Did you get a fix?” Hawken dropped the book he had been reading: the authorised biography of Nelson B. Kreelman.

“Yes sir, but minimal information on mutant numbers. Estimate twenty five plus. No data on how many are armed.”

“Did the tracker sign off before transmission ended?”

“No, sir.”

“Damn.” It sounded like R&D’s toy had met with an accident. Instinct told him that the soundest option would be to call for spooker planes to reduce the last transmission site to craters and ashes. But he had standing orders to retrieve the cyborg for analysis if it went unexpectedly offline. They would just have to annihilate any witnesses the old fashioned way.

 ~~~

 

Two truckloads of refugees had been sent off to make the slow way to the safety of the southwest faction’s main rendezvous point at Stonehenge. Scouts flanked them on skimmer and horseback, so if contact with the enemy was made there would be time to divert the vehicles away.

But Alpha was betting that the Kreelers weren’t just randomly patrolling. He was betting that they were on their way here, now. Acting on a signal that _thing_ \- whatever it was - had sent.

A few vehicles, a handful of people and half a dozen ponies had been left at the original campsite, to start creating some obvious heat traces and engine signatures - in case the Kreelers needed to confirm their signal by other means. The rest - and the men he had kept in reserve - had scattered out from the camp, to hastily set up ambush points on the most likely routes in. They’d use the camp as a fall-back position and somewhere to take the wounded, should the Kreelers prove too strong.

Sneaky Pete scrambled over a muddy bank and dropped into the ditch that Alpha lay in.

“All set?” the youth asked.

Pete grinned. “Oh yeah. Lots of nice surprises for our norm friends. Now all we have to do is wait.”

“Or not.” Alpha nodded towards the first Kreeler troopers emerging from the trees.

 ~~~

 

The damn muties had been lying in ambush for them! Hawken could barely contain his fury and embarrassment. Twice in three days. It was too much to be coincidence: unlikely as it might seem, the freaks must have found a way to hack their comm net. Either that or R&D had screwed up and their pet’s supposedly untraceable tightbeam to the satellite wasn’t quite as tight and leak-proof as the specifications suggested.

No matter. What was important now was he’d had another two squads cut to pieces by the sub-human vermin. Eight dead, five wounded. The ratio of Mutant Army terminated to normals maimed or KIA was becoming unacceptable. Someone needed to rethink the strategy on the infiltrators.

His comm’s man’s last, curt message had said as much before the man and transmitter had been reduced to burning debris. Hawken snarled at the memory.

He stared at the charred stump where his own left hand used to be.

His right was clenched on his pistol, waiting for the muties to make their final assault. He intended to push that kill ratio as far in favour of the norms as he could in his last few minutes.

Damn infiltrator should have been equipped with a bomb.

 ~~~

 

“Grud, you’ve never seen such a mess inside - scar tissue all over, fucking implants everywhere… If I catch up with the sick bastards that did this I’ll gut them like… like…” Merrill’s frustration and fury overcame his ability to express himself.

Alpha, Box and Blue Gums were with the medic at the site of the temporary encampment where the ‘baby’ had been discovered. Merrill had so far refused to leave, depressed and angry at his losing battle to save Tessa’s life. Even now his gaze strayed back to the ramshackle shelter where the woman lay dying. Garth had excavated a hole nearby, ready to bury her along with the shattered remains of the _thing_ which had used her as host.

“Will a standard mediscan be able to detect those things?” Alpha asked. The youth’s own eyes glittered with suppressed rage.

“What?” Merrill pulled himself back to the question with difficulty. “Uh, yeah. I think so. Unless the implants mess it up somehow. But even then, a trained medic would know that something was not right.”

“They were counting on us not having any trained medics,” Box said darkly.

“They thought wrong.” Alpha tossed Merrill the scan he’d taken from the Kreeler dead. “Use that. Record everything. Flag up what we have to look for. We’re going to spread word of this to every Mutant Army division in the country.”

There would be paranoia and terror at the news. But better that than cyborg spies in their midst.

 

          *              *

 

Mother was dying.

Baby dragged himself a painful few millimetres closer to her. He could no longer feel the link to the satellites far above, but before it had failed he had called out for help. He had told them that Mother was in danger and asked them to save her.

One of the people he was supposed to track and tag was with Mother now. That person was trying to save her too. Baby wondered at this: others were not supposed to be able to hear or understand his transmissions. If he suspected they had, he was supposed to bite them so they didn’t remember. A tremor went through his shattered jaws at the thought. It would be hard to inject the venom efficiently.

But… if he bit the man then he would stop healing Mother… and Baby’s own shattered body was in no condition to save her.

Mother moaned, in terrible pain and not hearing the reassurances the man muttered. Baby squirmed closer. Torn tongue licked at Mother’s finger tips.

The man would heal her. Help would arrive soon. Baby would keep her happy until it did so.

He made a last effort and laid his head on Mother’s hand. Summoned the final scraps of energy and tried to tell her a happy story.

 ~~~

 

“Davy?” Tessa felt cold all over. She didn’t know where she was, but Davy - Davy was here! He had found her. He knelt by her side, blond hair falling into his eyes as he pressed hands to her abdomen.

She reached a hand to try and brush the hair from his face. Felt him catch her fingers and lay her arm back down again.

“It’s okay. Just lie still. You’re going to be okay.” Davy sounded tired and desperate, but he was here, and that was all that mattered.

“Davy, I thought… I thought they’d killed you. The Kreelers…”

“S’okay. No Kreelers here.” He was distracted with whatever it was he was doing. That was her Davy, always worrying about some task or other. Always trying to look after her.

“They killed our baby.” She whispered it, needing to tell him, but not wanting to drive him away again. “The Kreelers killed our baby.” Was that right? She remembered the labs, and Kreeler medics strapping her down, and a tiny body with golden, blood streaked fur. Fur like Davy’s. But then there had been another pregnancy.

Tessa turned her head and looked at Baby. He wasn’t Davy’s child. Was that why Davy had gone away? “I think a Kreeler must be his father. But he’s mutant - see? Like us.”

Davy looked at her and then at Baby. “Oh Grud…”

She stroked Baby’s head. “We can look after him. Please, Davy.” The cold was eating into her bones, but she couldn’t seem to shiver.

“Yeah, we can look after him.” Davy rubbed a hand across his eyes, as if he was crying. Tentatively he picked up Baby, wrapped him in something, laid him aside. Drew a pistol in blood-soaked hands.

Tessa smiled. They would be a family. Her and Davy and Baby.

When the shot came Davy’s image wavered slightly, another man briefly in his place. Tessa closed her eyes against the anomaly. Davy was here. She’d seen him and talked to him. Everything would be fine now.


End file.
